Five Dragons advance to regionals

ERIE While Warren didn’t produce a District 10 championship on the mat, it was nevertheless a successful two-day trip to McDowell High School.

Jake Fankhouser at 113 and Derek Reagle at 195 advanced to the finals in their respective weight classes, and they will join teammates Bailey Winslow (120), Jake Engstrom (138) and Brett Cummings (152) at the Northwest Region Tournament in Altoona.

The Dragons finished sixth as a team with 85 1/2 points, with Cathedral Prep taking first.

“I’m very pleased,” said Warren coach Dean Johnson. “The way things ended wasn’t great, but they’ll get better. They know what they have to work on. We’ll get after it this week.”

Fankhouser got to the finals courtesy of a 6-2 semifinal win over Titusville’s Chris Wig, while Reagle defeated Jeff Craig of Meadville, 17-6, to earn his spot in the finals.

Both lost to a pair of Cathedral Prep wrestlers in the finals Fankhouser to Tyler McKinney and Reagle to Ian Malesiewski.

“You really can’t change much, because they have the stuff they’re going to go with,” Johnson said. “I thought Jake wrestled a tremendous match. That kid was real good. Derek’s I thought was going to be a little closer. I knew that boy was really good on his feet and I told Derek he had to watch that, which he was able to neutralize.”

Despite the losses in the finals, it was a good day overall for both, as well as Winslow, Engstrom and Cummings.

Winslow got to the consolation final after a pin of Central Tech’s Patrick Dacus, where he dropped a close decision to GM’s Brad Motter.

Engstrom, meanwhile, earned a pin over East’s Jaron Carr to get to the consolation finals, but a minor injury prevented him from the consolation final match. Johnson noted that is was just a precaution, and that he wanted to make sure he didn’t make it any worse with regionals looming.

Cummings, meanwhile, earned a tech fall over Oil City’ Nick Dobson to punch his tickets to regionals, before falling to Prep’s Alijandro Linan 10-4 in the consolation finals.

Johnson is looking for a strong week of practice from his group leading up to the trip to Altoona.

“We want to keep them healthy and have them in a good mindset going down there, knowing anything can happen,” he said. “There’s guys thinking they’re going to win districts and they get upset in the semifinals, and their head’s not on straight when they go into the wrestlebacks. You have to be ready to capitalize on things like that.”

The Warren wrestlers were part of what was a very special weekend for Warren athletics and Johnson wanted to express congratulations on behalf of his team to the Warren girls basketball team for winning the District 10 championship.